Does It Pay to Change the Thermostat in Your House?

Programmable thermostats save money and are fairly easy to install.

If you have a centralized heating and cooling system in your house, more than likely you have a single thermostat to control the temperature. You set a temperature and it kicks on when that temperature is reached. Unless you manually turn the system on or off, the device will automatically turn on no matter the time of day or whether you are there. Your pets love it when you are gone; your wallet feels it when the bill comes.

Savings

Those of us who were kids during the energy-starved 1970s remember well the freezing cold house in the early morning when our parents, trying to save energy, forgot to turn up the heat from overnight. Would you like to save around 10 percent of your annual energy bill and spare your kids this horror? Then replace your current thermostat with a programmable one.

New thermostat

Programmable thermostats are reasonably priced and may be found in the home improvement sections of most larger stores. Many of them can be programmed to turn off at certain times of day when no one is home or turn on just before you come home from work. They are also designed to be programmed to adjust the temperature significantly when you are asleep and readjust to normal just before you wake up, for maximum savings.

Installation

You do not have to be an electrical engineer to install one but you do need to be familiar with how to turn your home's electricity off before you do it and back on again after installation. Most programmable thermostat kits will have detailed instructions on how to install one using common household tools.

About the Author

Stan Smith is a writer based in Nashville. He has been a journalist with "The Tennessean" and "The Northern Virginia Daily" since 1985 covering crime, corruption and sports. Stan holds a Bachelor of Arts in German history from The University of the South and is working on his first novel.